


An Affair

by Winterstar



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, F/M, Permanent Injury, Retelling of An Affair to Remember, Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-04-24 18:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4930657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on An Affair to Remember Sara and Neal have a pact. After Neal finishes his sentence and he’s free of the tracker, they will meet at the top of the Empire State building and re-ignite their love affair. Only when Sara waits, Neal never shows up because his past comes to haunt him. The consequences will change the course of love and life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my artist for a great piece, Love82 and to my wonderful beta who really fixed this - though I didn't take all of her advice so blame that on me! 
> 
> See the original art piece at my lj [here](http://winterstar95.livejournal.com/2014/04/14)

Kissing Neal is like swallowing the sun.

His heat burns nerve endings to ash, and his passion sets a miasma of need expanding in her like the haze of a hot summer day. It had always been that way, but the last kisses they shared had been something different, something more, something that no longer burned to ruin. Those kisses built dreams, and those dreams were not made from ghostly whispers but from vows of something deeper, something hopeful, something promised. Those kisses built palaces of lives lived and stories of who they could be and wanted to be. Neither of them believed the shared kisses, neither of them could. They both thought the kisses lied.

But now, as she sits on the plane and stares out the window as it breaches the cut of wind and forces itself onto the thin strip of asphalt to land, she realizes those kisses were true and right. She touches a light finger tip to her lips and thinks of how it is to kiss the sun.

It is warm and bright and dangerous. The danger curls in her belly and turns over like a hot iron from the fire. She finds she likes it more than she should. But it is time. She’s a grown up woman, she’s forged her way in this world and she’s defined herself. She’s independent and beautiful and nobody’s fool. She knows she is not a domestic goddess, but one of the jet set, she will always be that way. Picket fences and children and dogs are not what she’s made of nor will she ever find herself in that realm. 

Her sphere of influence lies differently. The world is tangential to who she is, and who she has always wanted to be. And Neal – Neal has always represented the lure of accepting who she really is. A lover of the chase, of the dance of life – not one to settle or settle down. Neal accepts it, and wants to offer her more, Neal wants her to live in the clouds with him.

She’s ready for it. She’s finally ready. 

The cold of England behind her, she’s ready to feel the land of her birth beneath her heels again. 

~~~~oOo~~~~  
He tells no one. He keeps it clenched tight to his chest. He keeps it secret and safe as if he’s Frodo with the ring. When he wonders about this analogy he acknowledges that this is precious to him, this hope, this well springing inside of him. It has been years since they made a wish and a promise. It has been stories told and retold and revisited since their fateful meeting on top of the Empire State Building. Yet he dreams of it every night now like it is singing to him, calling to him with the voice of an ancient siren. It mesmerizes him. The dream, the hope, the words they once spoke.

He still recalls the moment he bent down on one knee and – the feeling – how the words bubbled up in his chest with a pressure he could not ignore. He wanted to banish and look away from it. But he could no sooner deny his emotional response at that moment than he could deny the need for air. She was air to him. She was the oxygen in his lungs. She was the only woman in his life that knew EXACTLY who he always was. He never had to hide the fact that he was a criminal, that he played the game. He played it with her. 

She’d once told him that he lived in the clouds and he brought her up to the clouds to propose all the those years ago. It had been a sham, of course, yet another caper to catch a thief and a murderer. Yet they’d both realized in moments that the words he professed were not faked or for a confidence game. The words he spoke and those she replied had been real. 

A real thing between them – a promise of a better life, a dream they both denied either could really have, because they were not the type for picket fences even though they pretended to be. They were the jet set, the players, the ones that lived fast and died young. He knew he could never promise her more than that on that day long ago.

He knew he could only spin tales of fantasy and wishes and dreams. She accepted that, and they made that fanciful promise, that vow, that if they were both free one day after he was released from his servitude to the penal system, then they would meet again. Like that movie they admired, they would meet at the top of the Empire State Building, and they would find a way to define life together. 

He tells no one. Neal knows how to keep secrets; it is part of living the life and the lie. He knows how to play his cards close to his chest and watch the other players. But this is not a game, this is something so much more than a game. This is his life.

He leaves his apartment at June’s mansion at the designated time. He planned it out as if it was a jewel heist. Mozzie would be proud. He smiles, the kind of smile that is fond and kind. He will miss the life with Mozzie, but he made a vow and a promise. He vowed something to a woman he loved and he promised the same to a man he respected. He’d told Peter on the day of his release that he finally understood. He could appreciate the good and the bad, the ugly and the obscene. He understood the ways of the law and while he didn’t always agree with them, for the most part he would try and stay on the narrow side of good (not always there because both of them knew that was not part of his make-up, and he would just be lying to Peter if he said that. He doesn’t like to lie to Peter; he’s only done it at Elizabeth’s request and he won’t do it again). 

When Peter asked him his plans, he’d only smiled and tapped his pencil on the desk as if to count out the number of things to do, or to measure the many distances he could now travel. He didn’t want to travel anywhere other than the Empire State Building. He didn’t tell this to Peter. Peter tilted his head, considering Neal and the whole of his demeanor that day. Peter knew something was up, but said nothing. Both of them could read the other so well now it was second nature.

He absently wonders if Peter will put a tail on him today. Half of him wants Peter to do it, to show him he’s not going back on his word already, the other half wants this time alone, wants to be able to do this without a chaperone. 

June isn’t home today so when he leaves the mansion, he actually hangs back and locks up. He skips down the steps and the spring day reminds him of lilacs and hyacinths. The city’s vibrant with the new season and it’s washed away the scum and dirt of the winter. 

When he thinks back on these moments, he wonders if it was the excitement waiting at the end of a long sentence, or if it was just his carelessness due to the Spring day. He will never know.

As he hails a cab and directs it to the appointed meeting place, the driver smiles at him. He can’t stop the bubbling, he’s a confidence man, but all of his skills abandon him today. The cabby is a young man with a thick accent which Neal cannot place. This is odd, because Neal can place accents; it is part of his job. If you can’t place a person then you can’t read them and if you can’t read them it puts you at a distinct disadvantage.

“Goin’ somewhere, then?”

“To the Empire State Building, like I said,” Neal says. He’s not sure about the man as he weaves the car through the streets. In order to stop him from asking any more probing questions, Neal digs out his cell phone and scrolls through the apps. 

There’s a text message from Peter, it reads- Enjoying your first day of freedom

He taps out a message. Spent an hour trying to figure out how to put on my socks. Then realized didn’t need to finagle the sock under the anklet. Might need to get a jeweled one to take its place. 

The answer is immediate and predictable. Just as long as you purchase it with real money of your own.

Clever, Peter, clever. He chuckles a little at Peter’s need to watch over him. It should rankle him, but in many ways Peter has become family, like a big brother, constantly checking in to see if his wayward sibling can find the right path. Long ago, Neal learned to accept Peter’s need to verify that he’s on the straight and narrow. It can be condescending and a bit insulting, but Neal has acknowledged that the intentions are good and he should leave it at that – at least that’s what Elizabeth has told him.

As he slips his phone back into his pocket it vibrates. He picks it up, ignoring the driver as he peers into the rearview mirror. “Hello?”

“Neal?” 

“Elizabeth, hey! Your husband already misses me. Tell him to stop bothering me with love texts.”

“I’m sure he does miss you, all of your antics over the years, how will he ever deal with smooth sailing from now on?”

“How will he ever deal with his closure percentage dropping?”

“Or being able to sleep at night knowing he doesn’t have to worry about your latest schemes?” She pauses and then continues with a softer tone. “He’ll always worry, Neal, please don’t make him worry.”

“I won’t Elizabeth, that’s a promise.” He smiles, she’s never been a perfect supporter of him, but she’s always been a supporter – one way or another. She understands the world is colored in variations of tones, not black and white, and Peter is a better man because of her. She understands tonality. “What is it, Elizabeth?”

“Peter and I would like to invite you over for dinner this weekend,” Elizabeth says.

“Is this Peter’s way of keeping tabs on me? Is he going through anklet app withdrawal?” Neal grins.

“Probably, the man had that app on all the time. But no, this is me. I’d like you to come over. I have a confession to make?”

His smile drops. “What is it?”

“Don’t get too serious, Neal. I contacted a friend at a little studio in Soho, she wants to interview you.”

“This isn’t a set up, Elizabeth, is it?” He touches the square box in his breast pocket. He’s told no one. It is a precious secret, he cannot share.

“No, no set-up. She’s much too old for you and she bats for the other team as Peter would put it.”

“Maybe Diana then?”

Elizabeth giggles, the sound has always been a delight. “No, God, no. I would never set up Diana. Back on track, Neal, this is a good opportunity, would you consider it? They want an agent to help book artists.”

He considers it, if all goes well he might even have a date. “Can I bring someone?”

“Someone?”

“Just, don’t ask and don’t tell Peter, please?”

“Our secret, if you promise to come?” Elizabeth says and he knows part of her doing this is for Peter’s peace of mind. He needs to know that Neal has an avenue to pursue that offers a way out of the crooked paths he’s travelled in the past.

“Okay, I promise.”

“Great, great, see you at seven?”

“At seven, Saturday?”

“Yep, great!” She disconnects and Neal smiles again. 

When he looks up he studies his surroundings and realizes the driver is far off course. “I said the Empire State building.”

“That you did, sir, that you did. Unfortunately, I was hired by someone else who is much more interested in you than a cheap cab fare across town.”

“I wouldn’t say it was cheap.”

“Compared to a cool ten grand, it sure is.” The man snickers when Neal goes to touch the door. “Don’t bother, he tricked out my cab, too. It’s locked and only I can unlock it.” He hears the cock of a gun and Neal knows the cabbie is going to ask for his phone before he does. “Now, take the phone and toss it out the window.”

Neal sighs. “You know I don’t work for the FBI, right? I’m just another Joe on the street.”

“Yeah, that’s why he wants you.” The man drives the car over the gravel parking lot of a large rundown warehouse near the Hudson. “Now, drop the phone.”

“Or else?”

“I will shoot you.”

“I don’t think so,” Neal says and yanks out his phone. He hits the phone icon. “I think you’ve been told to deliver me without a scratch.” He hits the speed dial for Peter. “I think you have no other choice but to do nothing and watch me-.”

He doesn’t so much as hear the bullet discharged from the gun as feel it hit his shoulder. His first thought is that it isn’t a killing shot, which is good, his second thought is that it was precise, because his hand fumbles and the phone falls to the floor of the cab.

“That’s better now, you sit there for a second.” The man sticks the gun back in his pocket after he parks the car. He looks back at Neal, a frown over his brows. “Now you sit and relax yerself, there, see? And you weren’t wrong or nothing. He just said bring ‘im alive. And see, your alive and all. Just didn’t mention no scratches.” He hitches a breath and Neal figures he’s laughing but it doesn’t sound like laughing it sounds more like hissing. “Be right back.”

When the man exits the car, Neal thanks whoever is watching over him today, if it is not Peter, because the idiot forgot to retrieve the phone. He bends over, but the pain in his shoulder throbs a new beat and he bites back a cry of pain. He needs to be quiet, he needs to assess the situation. 

He does a quick scan of the surroundings and notes they are close to the docks for the ferries. How did they get so far off course and Neal not know it? He wasn’t paying attention and now his shoulder is making a mess of his suit and probably the box with the ring in it. For a brief moment, he worries this is some kind of strange heist to get the ring, but there’s really nothing special about it. It’s just a ring, not the one ring for God’s sakes. It cost a pretty penny but surely not worth enough for an elaborate kidnapping and shooting. 

As he studies the data in his head, he bends down and tries to scoop up the phone. The pain does a one eighty on him because where he was feeling numb it bursts open with a sharp stabbing wound as bright as the flares of the sun. Grabbing at his shoulder, he presses the heel of his left hand into the wound. It sends spirals of lights exploding in his head and he pants for breath. He needs the phone, that’s all that matters.

“Now, what would you being doin’?”

Shit.

He looks up but can’t stop the grimace from his face as he tries to sit up, the pain rips through him again. “Keller.”

“Tell me ya missed me, tell me, Nealie boy, tell me.”

*oOo*  
She picks out a white linen dress and it’s difficult to ensure it doesn’t get creases or lines in it. But she’s careful and the day does have enough humidity that it will straighten out nicely as she waits. She instructs the taxi driver to drop her at her apartment. She never had the heart to sell the place, but it is empty. She unlocks the door and the place has a feel to it that reminds her of a mausoleum as if she shouldn’t speak, as if she should respect places of the dead. But this place, this abode is not a grave, it had been all of her life all those years ago when she spent wild hours with Neal. 

Sometimes, when she would sit in her nice apartment in London, staring out at a particularly rainy day, Sara would wonder if she kept her home in New York City so that she could have an anchor. This often sent chills up her spine, more so than the rain or winds of England. She feared she wouldn’t have the ability to leave the Earth, to live up in those cotton candy clouds that Neal inhabited.

She presses her hands down the line of her waist to the swell of her hips, imagining how Neal’s hands will feel there and a light sweat breaks out. She huffs out a breath, can’t get worked up. Not now, not yet. She doesn’t even know if Neal will be there. She hadn’t spoken to him about this meeting. They hadn’t spoken in over a year. They’d made the plans, to meet at the top of the Empire State Building if both of them were free the day after Neal was released from his sentence.

Sara knew from friends, including Elizabeth Burke, that a lot had happened. But friendships have a tendency to weaken and fray, even with social media, even with all the connections and interactions these days. She hadn’t heard from Elizabeth in months, and probably wouldn’t. Now that she quit her job and planned to go into business on her own in New York, she’d cut all the ties. She hadn’t had personal email accounts, or phones. 

Going over her hair, she played with different styles, she wanted it to be just right. In the end, she stares at the mirror and chastises herself. She isn’t a Disney Princess, she’s a bitch to many and an enemy to a few. She rarely makes the attachments others make and when she does – they are always safe. People she knows will break her heart, people she knows she can never commit to, not really.

It aches a little, this thought. Because she’s always categorized Neal in this way. She straightens her shoulders and studies herself. She has her hair up in a twist; it glimmers in the soft light of the day. She needs to stop this foolishness. She didn’t come home for Neal, she came home for herself. She’s starting a business. She needs to stay focused.

Yet she came back a few days early because of this meeting with Neal. She arranged her whole schedule to fit into this, planned her meetings and her new clients so that she could take this day and meet Neal in the clouds of New York City. She briefly considers whether all the clouds are just pollution.

“Sara, you are being morose,” she says as she stands in the middle of her bedroom. The bed is covered in sheets, the room is quiet and solemn. “Seeing Neal, seeking someone to be with is not a weakness.”

But a distraction.

“No, it isn’t,” she says and realizes just how foolish she is being as she argues with herself. “Neal is different. He’ll be able to help me out with my business. This meeting is more like a job interview for him.”

She laughs because job interviews at the top of the Empire State Building happen all the time. She can’t even fool herself, she’s trying for the romantic, happily ever after ending, with a knight in shining armor who happens to wear a fedora. 

Looking at her watch, she knows she only has a short time to get there. “Why the hell not?” She’s come all this way and, if she is going to be honest with herself, this is really all about Neal. If she’s going to have her wings melted and torn asunder, she might as well fly close to the sun. 

The cabbie takes forever to drive her to the site, she keeps checking her watch and hoping she’s there before Neal. For some reason, she wants to get ready, prepare herself for the moment he steps out of the elevator. She wants to see his eyes sparkle and dance when he glimpses her for the first time and knows she came all the way from England to claim him.

This thought helps her. Claiming Neal, not bowing to him, not just standing in his shadow – it is the perfect way to think about it. Once they finally arrive, she’s more than aggravated at the driver, but clamps her mouth shut and hands him a wad of money. “Keep the change.”

He grunts something in return and when she glances his way, she realizes he just said Good luck.

She colors and nods and climbs out of the cab, feeling foolish. As he drives off, she sighs. She’s committed now, and she needs to be honest with herself. She wants to see Neal. She longs to be within the charm of his eyes, the glory of his embrace, the spectacle of his dreams. 

As a risk taker, it shouldn’t surprise her. She goes to the counter, then gets in line to ride up to the observation deck. Only a little while now and her hands are sweaty. She opens her clutch and looks at her new phone. She should have messaged Neal and told him her new number. But in the end she’s a hopeless romantic, as is Neal. This way is just so much better. Meeting at the top of the Empire State Building, it’s all too corny and sappy and she loves every minute of it. Neal truly does know how to play her. 

When she arrives, Sara is happy to find Neal is not there yet. Even though she’s only two minutes until their planned meeting time, he’s still not here. He’ll be late, this is good. It will take her a few minutes to get herself calm, relaxed, slightly aloof. She needs to control the situation.

She looks at her watch again. The deck isn’t crowded, but there are people milling about. It is the middle of the week and tourists are pointing to sites and discussing how beautiful the cityscape is. She wanders to the side and looks through the fencing. Recalling the last time she was here brings a flutter to her heart and she feels the shame of it again.

Yet, she looks at her watch again, and waits.

*oOo*

Trying to convince Keller of anything but his singular purpose becomes a lesson in futility and humility. Keller is bent on revenge, and Neal is the center of his focus. He’s not certain how long he’s been there, but the day burns away through the high window near the ceiling of his cell, and night strips away the sun for the cool hardness of night. There’s no argument or sanity. What is left of Keller, the Matthew Keller Neal knew all those years ago in Monaco, is lost. Reason is not a companion for the enraged.

Neal knows rage now, understands it within the very bones of his body. Once Keller’s goons hauled him from the cab and fought off his struggle by punching him in his bullet wound, they dragged him to this place, this decrepit building by the docks. It smells of dried urine, and sea brine, and blood. Mold grows along the walls like a tapestry, the floor he lies on seems endlessly wet and puddles with water. He wonders absently if this had been a berth at one time. It’s ridiculous to consider, but the seeping floor and the moldy walls support the idea. 

A slit near the ceiling of his cell provided what little light he had during the daylight hours. He’d tried to reach it, to find a way. But that’s when they came in, that’s when Keller took a baseball bat to his hip and left thigh. He felt the bone crumple under the third blow. With each blast, the funnel of pain narrowed and his world contracted. The blissfulness of unconsciousness welcomed him and he lovingly slid into its embrace like a long lost lover. Before he lost consciousness though, he heard Keller mutter that Neal would suffer his fate.

Unsure what Keller meant by that, Neal lies on the damp floor unable to move, without the means to help himself. He reaches up to the coagulated mass of blood on his shoulder and then digs into his breast jacket pocket. There is the box, the ring that represents his hopes. He worries, perhaps Keller knows of his plans, maybe Keller will abduct Sara and hurt her too. The thought brings on the waves of nausea and he’s both surprised but also cowed by the idea that harm to Sara would cause him to get ill, but his own very serious injuries have only brought on a maudlin dark emotion.

His morose mood continues because he cannot think of Sara being hurt. He shouldn’t have planned this; he should have cut ties completely. His past life haunts him, follows him like a curse. He cannot banish it, but it should be his cross to bear, not Sara’s, never Sara’s. He clutches the ring in his hand and then realizes if Keller finds it, if he searches Neal before they dump his body somewhere – Sara would be in peril. How long would it take Keller to find out it was Sara Neal had been heading to meet? Not long, that man may be a son of a bitch, but he’s brutally intelligent. Keller uses his smarts like a dagger, cuts out what he wants and leaves the rest of the knowledge to bleed away.

He has no other choice but to get rid of the ring. Looking around the pitiful dark space of his cell, he notes the notches in the wood, the pitted places where grime and dirt and mold have accumulated. He has to be careful, if he upsets the look of the place, it could alert Keller to find out why.

He can’t move far, he won’t. If he does, Keller would follow that trail as well. Bracing himself, he crawls toward the little light that streams in still from the slanted window as the day dies into night. He feels the floor, allowing his sensitive hands, his hands which were made for art, to feel for any imperfections. There are many, but most he cannot use, until he finds a whorl, a knot in the wood that’s loose. 

Digging at it, he groans as even this exercise sends bolts of pain through his leg and up his back. He shifts and howls as the pain brightens and he gulps down the fresh nausea. 

“Come on, come on,” Neal says and pokes and digs until the knot gives way. He picks it out and it’s large enough to stuff the entire box into the hole. He pushes it down, as far as possible until it’s encased in the muck below the building. It’ll never see the light of day again, but in this way he tells himself he’s saving Sara.

He replaces the bit of wood, and then works the area with the mold, and mud. It isn’t hard, it’s like a painting. In little time, he’s able to cover it up and conceal it within the ugly setting of the cell. He lies back and moans out a cry. The pain in his back swims and he notices how very far away his legs actually feel, almost dissociated from his body.

Looking down, he confirms he still has two legs, one mangled and twisted. He drags himself away from the hiding place and collapses to the floor. The cool shudders of shock overcome him, and he’s surprised how long he’s been able to hold it off. He closes his eyes because he wants relief, because he wants to forget, because he wants to dream about what could have been and what will not happen.

This time there will be no Peter to find him. The anklet is gone and, in Peter’s mind, there is no reason to find him. The chase is over, and Neal is lost.


	2. Chapter 2

He never shows up and Sara tells herself that she’s fine. She looks up into the night sky and nods as the elevator operator, a kindly gentleman asks her to board the last lift and fall away from the sky. She knew better, she always knows better. Loving Neal is asking too much, it’s about walking in the clouds, it is swallowing the heart of the sun. 

She never cries, Sara stopped crying when her sister disappeared. She doesn’t cry now. She gathers herself and shifts gears. Never in her life has she been deemed a loser, a quitter. Sara wins, always. She just needs to set her goals, decide what she wants. As she considers the fact that Neal didn’t show up, she starts unraveling her life, untangling everything and everyone who might be connected to Neal. She doesn’t need to be within his circles. She doesn’t want to be anywhere she might trip and tumble into his sphere of influence. 

When she gets home she begins to delete Neal from her life, slowly, effectively, and without pause. She closes off her heart, allows the cold slice of it to freeze away any fear, any love, any wishes. 

She briefly considers calling Elizabeth; she's in the city and maybe, maybe they could talk, she could find out Neal's mindset. In the end she is ruthless with herself, she has always been when it comes to emotions. Once burned, and hurt, she learned to cut off the want and need and pain, slice it quick and fast. There is no need to linger.

Sara has always been prepared for the probability of Neal Caffrey, because Neal Caffrey cannot be relied upon, cannot be scheduled and hoped for and planned. Like a thorn or a barb, Neal Caffrey wheedled his way under her skin and stung her deep and totally. She will not allow it to defeat her, nothing has yet. She clears him from her brain, clears everything and everyone. She's done this before, she's an expert on getting rid of the past and living through it and seeing beyond it.

She doesn't call Elizabeth, instead she activates plan B. Always prepared, she smiles. Everyone calls her a bitch, a cold hearted fish who couldn't care about life and love. They think she only cares about her career and her clothes and the next high fashion heels she can get.

But of course, she loves her heels.

She smirks but she's smart, too. She draws closed her blinds that night, takes a nice hot cup of tea to bed with her (she stopped at the local grocery for some items on the way). Her place is a little stale, a little dusty, but she won't be staying long. She made contingency plans. Tomorrow she leaves, tomorrow the rest of her life begins. Tomorrow she'll redefine Sara Ellis and Neal Caffrey will not be in the equation.

She sips the tea and realizes she hasn't eaten all day. Placing her tablet on the side table, she climbs from bed and goes to her grocery bag to find something. There really isn't much for her. She shuffles through it, looking for something light, something that is easy to prepare. Nothing appeals to her and she tells herself it isn't because of Neal. It isn't because he never showed up.

For God's sake it isn't like he left her at the altar.

She forces her eyes upward toward the ceiling as she fights off the tears welling in her eyes.

"Get your act together, Sara." Her voice comes out broken and small and she feels like the world is so much larger tonight than it has ever been - at least since she was a little girl and her sister disappeared. The world turned into a huge mass of confusion, of words and circumstances and so many strangers that could hurt her or harm her sister that night so long ago.

She still recalls how it felt to go out the days and weeks after her sister's disappearance. All the alleys, the dark places, the nooks and crannies of the city called to her, beckoning her as if she might find what she was looking for. When she ventured off once to look, to see if her sister was there just lurking in the shadows, her mother yanked her back and said, "No, you don't know who's out there, who might-." And then she fell silent until she controlled her tone again. It wasn't controlled, but wavering and cracking. "I can't lose you too, Sara, please."

So the world turned from a nice place to adventure to a place filled with fears and dangers. She built up her walls then, strong and solid, brick by brick. She constructed walls around herself. She tested it, all the time, making sure no one could breach her defenses. The world would not defeat her, she would never surrender to it.

Yet now, as she glances down into the paper bag, tears fall. She wants to deny they are there. She wants to pretend Neal Caffrey is not the promise she was looking for. She is a whole person without him, but -.

"I could have been more," she whispers and realizes love isn't about completion but about attaining the unattainable. Getting, resolving to be more than herself, reaching out and achieving different things and stretching beyond limits can be done on her own, but Neal offered something she hadn't had in all these years.

The courage to dream.

"Neal," she murmurs and the sound of his name falls from her lips like a cascade of light, sparking and dying in the darkness. She wanted to speak his name tonight in a different way, in a hushed, wanting, yearning way. Not like this, not like it is a death.

"He never came," she states it to make herself believe it. "And that's okay." She says this out loud because she has to, she needs to, it is required. She builds up the walls again; the foundation of her fortress still exists. Brick by brick she mortars it together. She never completely abandoned it, but now she must strengthen it, fortify it.

Wiping away the wayward tears, she banishes the thought of Neal and her loss; she turns to the new day. The coming day will offer her more. It will be something beautiful and right. It will be her day.

Swallowing the sun is a dangerous thing. She burned herself, and she won't do it again. Neal Caffrey is the past. Sara Ellis looks to the future. She smiles, she can do this, she can remake herself again. She can be a chameleon again.

As she tucks herself in bed, she tries not to think about how very much the same she and Neal have always been, hiding from their true selves, hiding from fragmented families, and distant childhoods that were shattered. She tries not to think about any of these things.

*oOo*  
When he first comes awake the only thing he hears is the rush of wind against his ears. He wonders at this because he cannot feel it on his face, there is no refreshing breeze here. The next sensation is pressure, touching, and a hurried almost anxious feel about the action around him. He peels his eyes open and everything hurts when he does this, and he closes down again, wishes for the darkness of oblivion.

What happened? is the stray question that percolates through his mind. A flash and image come to him like a curse. He recalls Keller and his twisted face, the insanity streaked through him. He knows that Keller broke in the intervening years and turned into something crueler and uglier than he could ever imagine. 

Is Keller here, his brain wanders and tries to reconcile the hands touching him, and the quiet urgency about him with the idea of Keller. Not Keller, something tells him. This isn’t Keller, this is something else. He chances opening his eyes again and his sight falls upon the white blur about him, the gloved hands stained red, the tubes and lines. 

He panics and screams and thrashes until hands hold him down, confine him. The pain bursting from his leg and hip throw dizzying spells over him and he retches. Someone turns him to his side and he vomits up blood and bile. 

He cries out and there’s a face that perches over him, comforting him, quieting him.

“It’s all right, Neal, you’re in the hospital now.” The face is lovely and sweet. 

Female, he thinks. “Kate?”

“Shush,” she says and pats his shoulder. “I have to go now, they’re taking you to surgery.”

“Surgery?” he croaks out and his lips are cracked and bleeding. “Wh-what?”

“Peter will explain it all when you wake up.”

“Peter?” None of it makes sense. “Where is Keller?”

A look of surprise, and pain, and terror. “It was Keller?”

And then the face resolves and he knows he should have kept the words to himself, he should have saved her from the pain of memories. “Elizabeth,” he murmurs.

“Peter is coming, he’ll be here soon. When you get out of surgery, you can talk to him. Okay?” 

Neal only nods because the drugs drag him down and he confesses he does not want to fight them. He wants to follow them into the misty rivers of their dreams, he wants to forget what he lost, but he thinks he already did.

It feels like he’s trudging through mud, his mind thick with pain and sedation. He's not even sure if he's been awake or if he's been sleeping. The world revolves in slow, jerking motions with little linkage to what is happening or why. He tries to ask, but he's too weak or maybe the world is too far away. He wants to know if Keller is coming back, should he hide. But the people around him are ghosts, he decides. He doesn't know what to wish for - should he hope that Keller is coming back, should he wish that this is heaven and he's dead, or is it just hell where he will be captive in this horror of pain forever. He accedes to the searing pain, the loops and dizziness of his life, and sinks down under the seas of nausea and fog.

The world shifts eventually and he's sitting up awake in the middle of a hospital room. Mozzie is lazing next to the bed with a glass of wine and a crossword puzzle book (that Neal knows is probably just a cover for something else). He feels bound like a mummy wrapped and ready for the sarcophagus. Mozzie slurps his wine and places the glass on a table next to the chair. When he peers up he sees that Neal is awake, watching him.

He yelps and pops up on his feet, abandoning the book to the chair and he's next to Neal and hovering over him. Neal bats him away, but it doesn't work.

"You are awake this time."

"This time?" His voice sounds like gravel and it burns from disuse.

"You've kind of got some weird thing where you wake up, quote old movies and then fall back into a stupor again." Mozzie smiles and it is a broad grin. Neal can see the tension etched in his furrowed forehead relax.

"What?" The word comes out like a whispered choke.

Mozzie reaches over and picks up a paper cup with a plastic spoon. He ladles some ice chips into Neal's mouth. At first it shocks but then as it melts it cools and soothes the dryness in his throat. "If you are wondering what happened, you were found beaten half to death and shot near the docks. Nobody knows who-."

"Keller."

"What?" Mozzie stops offering the ice and Neal struggles to sit up and grab for them, but one of his arms is immobilized in a sling and his one leg is in some kind of contraption. "What are you saying, I thought Keller was experiencing the wonders of Mother Russia."

"Not anymore, apparently." Neal says and tries to shift again, but is thwarted. On his leg, an apparatus not dissimilar to some of the strange constructions he's used in the past for heists cradles his limb in its metal skeleton. He stretches and touches the rods which support his leg. It occurs to him then that he cannot feel his leg, and he understands this is due to the medicines they are pumping into him but nonetheless his heart races when he realizes he cannot feel either leg. "What happened? Why can't I feel my legs?"

Mozzie starts pacing the room, clucking and fiddling about with his glasses. His gaze sharpens but he still doesn't answer Neal directly. "We'll need to, the Suit, the Suit will need to call out the hounds."

"Hounds?" Neal's head pounds a rhythm in his head.

"Yes, the hounds. Keller, out there, loose." Mozzie settles down next to Neal's bed again, but the nerves crackle off of him like static electricity. "We have to contact the Suit."

"Yes," Neal lies back into the protection of the pillows. He's too tired to think, but he has to stay alert, he cannot fail Peter and Elizabeth - what if Keller goes after Elizabeth again. Peter will never forgive him. "How did you find me?"

"Abandoned taxi with blood in it, someone called it in. When the cops found it they searched around and found you in an old boat house."

Neal blinks and it is long and drawn out. Exhaustion eats at his awareness. "Boat house." He thinks of boats, and water, and mold, and old rings. "Keller brought me there."

"He shot you."

"No, the taxi driver did."

"Now that's a change up," Mozzie says. He seems to sense Neal's weakening condition. "I'm gonna go alert the Suit, you stay, sleep. Okay."

"Okay."

Mozzie stands up, crosses the room, but before he leaves he turns back and says, "You scared me this time, Neal. Really scared me."

Neal feels heavy and dragged down into the beckoning darkness, but he opens his eyes and says, "Me too."

Holding the door, Mozzie stops, inhales once, and then nods. "Me too." He disappears and Neal closes his eyes and surrenders.

*oOo*  
She wastes no time in changing her life and getting on with it. Sara Ellis has never been one to sit on her laurels or wade in her failures. She forges forward to fire up foundations in her life. When she returns to her home, she drops everything that connects her to this city and her old life into a cardboard box. She tapes it up and sets it out to the trash. Her life in a box, she thinks and smirks.

Has it always been this way?

Will it always be this way?

That line of thinking will just bring on a maudlin mood, so she turns away from the fear of a lone life, a life not shared, and turns back to the promise of freedom. Living as a single woman has always been invigorating. Losing Neal isn’t going to change who she is, she turned away from grieving all those years ago when she lost her sister.

She has contingency plans. Of course, she will be starting her business but before she contacts her new possible clients, she plans on taking care of Sara. First, she’s going away. She flips open her clutch purse and pulls out the contingency ticket. 

In the morning she’ll be back at the airport and this whole charade of a normal life will be behind her. What is a normal life anyhow? Who defines these things? She’s never been one for convention, she’s cutting ties, she might as well cut ties with little girl dreams.

*oOo*  
Three months after Neal leaves the rehabilitation center and finds his way back to his loft apartment at June’s, Peter knocks on his door with news. When he’d first realized he’d need a new apartment because the access to June’s lovely place would be impossible, she waved at him dismissively, rolled her eyes, and said there was a reason that on God’s green Earth, she had tons of money. One was to live life as she wished, two was to take care of her family. She considered both one and the same and she counted Neal as one of her family. He’d tried to dissuade her. But June was hardly a woman to be directed by any man, especially Neal.

The ramps had been installed, the elevator operational by the time the doctors and Neal (well, mainly the doctors) decided Neal could leave the rehabilitation center. Neal had argued with them as well. He argues with a lot of people these days. How could he possibly live on his own when his legs didn’t work?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this – knowing Keller - wasn’t supposed to leave him crippled. But it did and now he’s nothing more than an invalid. He can’t even look at Mozzie these days. 

He wheels his chair over to the door and pulls it open. “Peter?”

“Neal,” Peter says and glances around the place. He steps in when Neal backs slightly away. “June’s done good.”

Neal makes a point of not looking at all the modifications to the apartment, meant to make things easier for him. He raises his brows and says, “What’s up?”

“Can’t a friend just drop by?”

“Peter, you rarely just drop by, and I think you’re using the excuse that I’m confined to a wheelchair as a new way to keep tabs on me.”

“That’s a low blow, Neal,” Peter says and knocks the door closed. He’s dressed for a casual day. It is then Neal remembers that it is Saturday. Days blend together now, one after another. He hates it.

Peter goes to the fridge and digs around inside.

“Don’t tell me, Elizabeth is out of town and you’re hungry.”

“You could always read me,” Peter says and starts assembling a sandwich. “You want one?”

“If you’re making it, and as long as it isn’t that horrible ham thing you like so much.”

“Alas, you don’t have the ingredients,” Peter says with a long sigh. “Roast beef good?”

“With horseradish, yeah,” Neal says as he wheels back over to the line of empty canvases placed on the floor near his easel. It is barren as well.

“Working on something?” Peter says as he peers over his shoulder. 

Everyone is so concerned. Everyone is worried about Neal. The news the doctors should have told him was that he’d recover. But they didn’t. His hip and leg bone had been shattered, and the bone fragments and swelling cut off critical neural pathways. They still hoped, but Neal saw the look in their eyes when they thought he wasn’t looking. He understood a hopeless case. 

“Not really,” Neal replies and re-organizes his paint box again. “You?”

“Me?” Peter says as he places the lunch on the table. He pours two glasses of iced tea and brings a bag of chips to the table. Settling in, Peter claps his hands. “I’m starved.”

Moving to the head of the table where there’s an absent chair, Neal tucks in and glances at the bag. “You know you’re a heathen.” He reaches for the bag, pours some on his plate, and on Peter’s and then he rolls over to the counter to deposit the bag. Returning, he shakes his head. “I don’t know how Elizabeth puts up with you.”

“Well, she has others who balance things out, like you.” Peter seems pleased with himself on this account and Neal remains silent.

“Well? What case are you working?” Neal says, trying to keep his eyes on his plate because it still hurts that all of his plans and his backups are ashes.

Peter pauses before he says anything, playing with a chip on his plate. “We’re, we’re closing in on Keller.”

The cold pit in his stomach turns over and the food he’s already ingested threatens to reappear. Grabbing the edge of the table, he breathes through his nose with wide open nostrils. 

“Neal? Neal?” 

He hadn’t realized it, but Peter is standing by his side with his hand on Neal’s back. “Deep breaths, come on, deep breaths.”

“Sorry,” Neal replies and blinks several times to clear away the tunneling darkness.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, so stop apologizing. The man tried to kill you.”

“But it’s Keller and I always beat him, and now,” Neal stops. Because now, Keller won in every way. Neal cannot walk, his hopes are gone, he lost Sara. Everything changed because of Keller. He’s become of shadow of himself. He fulfilled Keller’s dreams of damning him.

“Now, you will still beat him. He’ll go to prison, for a long time, Neal. I promise you that,” Peter says. He sits down again, but stays close as if he’s worried Neal might fall apart. 

Neal picks at the sandwich, but doesn’t eat it. He knows Peter’s watching him, studying, him, assessing him. Peter can’t not do it, it is in his nature. Peering up through half-lidded eyes, Neal glimpses the scowl on Peter’s face. Instead of ignoring like he has all these many months, he decides to face it head on like a train wreck, because that is what he’s become. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend anymore.”

“Then stop pretending.”

“I’m not sure you understand,” Neal says with an exasperated sigh.

“I’m not sure you do, Neal,” Peter says and shoves his half eaten lunch away. “I’m not sure you get it at all.”

“Don’t start with the lecture Peter, my therapist has told me enough,” Neal says and tries to be grateful, but he’s not. He just wants the whole lot of them to leave him alone. 

“Well, then I have to say your therapist sucks.”

Neal chokes on his words as he hears Peter.

“Because you should really stop wallowing. That is not Neal Caffrey, Neal Caffrey gets up-.”

“If you haven’t noticed I can’t get up anymore,” Neal snaps back and pounds a fist on his wheel chair.

“Oh stop, stop playing a part, Neal. We feel for you, we do. We all care about you. Everyone does, Neal.” Peter leans forward trying to convey his earnestness.

But it doesn’t work because the one person Neal wants to care is gone, lost in the wind. He keeps his eyes averted as Peter talks.

“You’re Neal Caffrey, one of the most brilliant, creative, pains in the ass I know. You can do anything you want to do, and you know it.” Peter slams a fist on the table. “Damn it, look at me when I’m talking to you.”

“Why?” Neal snarls back at him. “You’re not my father, you’re not my older brother, Peter. You’re not even my handler anymore. Why the hell should I listen to you?”

Peter doesn’t back down, but growls back at Neal. “Because I am your friend, that’s why.” He points to the line of empty canvases. “Tell me after you were free of the anklet you were going back to a life of crime. Tell me.”

“No, I wa-.” He stops – that life – that dream is over now.

“You had a sense of what you wanted to do, you had plans. Nothing is stopping you now, nothing.” Peter shifts his eyes to the chair and then back to Neal’s gaze. “Nothing.”

When Neal doesn’t reply, Peter continues, “You had dreams, Neal, I know you did. Look at all the canvases, lined up, waiting. That chair doesn’t stop you.”

Peter falls silent letting the weight of his words lay on Neal, not to crush him, but to ground him. Tentatively he replies, “When my father was here, when he was here, he asked why I didn’t become an artist in my own right, because I’m that good.”

“You are brilliant, Neal, everyone keeps telling you that why don’t you believe them?”

“It’s not a point of believing, Peter, I always believed.” Neal studies his hands, the hands of an artist. “I always believed, but-.” Looking up at Peter he whispers, “I believed in the lie, the fairy tales I spun. But the fairy tales this time don’t have a happily ever after. I’ve lost more than you could possibly imagine, Peter.” He chokes back the knot settling in his throat, fidgets with his hands. “I lost more than my ability to walk.”

Reaching to him, Peter lays his hand on top of Neal’s and stills them. “You’re stronger than you think. And right now, you need your friends to build you up. We’re here, Neal. We won’t leave you.”

Neal nods and the welling tears are blinding, but he doesn’t allow them to fall. He has this – his friends – a great patron in June – and a wonderful place to stay. He has his life, he has his talent. He takes in a deep breath; it’s time to start living again and forget his dreams of the past.

It’s time to re-imagine Neal Caffrey.


	3. Chapter 3

Some angles are easier to see than others, she thinks as she gazes out at the Champs-Élysées. The lines of the shops, the cafes, the beautiful city at sunset charm her but still she thinks of angles and lines and light. She recalls in the twilight hours one day how Neal stood next to her on the balcony of his apartment at June’s. From her place at the balustrade of the balcony, Sara could see the cityscape, but it had been Neal hovering just behind her, pointing out the lines and angles, the reflected light, the cast shadows that brought the beauty of New York City into focus for her.

As she considers Paris, now, hands brush against her shoulders. Lips touch the peak of her shoulder, and then nuzzle into her throat. 

“Revenir au lit,” he says and his lips excite with their soft, but lingering touch.

“Not yet,” she answers. She doesn’t want to go back to bed, she only wants to watch the sun play against the buildings, the trees, the street below. She wants to memorize it and tell Neal how it looked. “ Sighing, she turns to see Patrice and smiles. He’s gorgeous and smart and ten years younger. She has everything.

“It isn’t New York,” she says and speaks it out aloud for him to hear.

“No, no,” he says and there’s a small smile that isn’t joyful on his face. “You are leaving?”

She hadn’t realized it when she’s said it, but it is true. “Yes, tomorrow.” 

“Then, come back to bed, now,” he says and tugs a bit at her hand. 

He’s lovely in every way. A perfect mix of beauty and vision and sensuality. She could stay in his world for many days to come, but not forever, never forever. There had only been one man she thought she could stay with forever, because he challenged her, he bit and nipped and tried her patience; he drove her to the edge of sanity. She shrugs the memories, the ache away, she’s not leaving for him. She’s leaving because of him.

“No,” she says and her fingers slip from his grasp. “I think I need to get ready for the flight tomorrow. I’m tired, I need some sleep.”

It’s the easy way out, the easy way to ask him to leave. He gets it. Bowing his head, he smiles that turn of lips that first attracted her at the party she went to a few weeks ago. “I will miss you, mon cheri.”

She walks into the apartment, kisses his cheek and says, “I’ll miss you, too.”

He lifts a hand and touches the tip of her nose. “No, you will not. And I am all the more lost without you.” 

She giggles. He almost, almost sounds as convincing as Neal. “Go. I’m going to shower.”

“No, goodbye, farewell?”

She only shakes her head and leaves him. Going into the bathroom, she strips out of her bathrobe and starts the water. She’ll need to buy a ticket and get her bags packed. She wants to go home, see the lines and the angles of her city again, feel it beat in her heart and in her ears. She wants to smell the stink of it, and scrub it off at night. It occurs to her that for the first time in many months, she’s yearning to go home, not to find Neal, but in spite of Neal. She thinks this might be progress.

New York City represents not only her center, her heart, but also everything that has become her definition with its fashion, its unforgiving air, its fast pace, and its cool touch with its warm, buried heart. She craves it like she once delighted in swallowing the sun with Neal’s kiss.

Finally, after months of breaking, Sara feels like she’s started to put the pieces back in the puzzle. She’s found all the lost and stray parts and pieces and assembling them will only take time. She can re-invent herself. She can become a new Sara Ellis.

*oOo*  
The painting, the act of it, takes over his spirit, his being, until he becomes the paint and the canvas. At first, the figures, the scenery is garnish and ugly. He paints out his hatred and frustration. Neal has very rarely hated anyone or anything in his life, but as he paints and the purples and blues and grays turn to mud in his hands he realizes how very much he despises. How he hates with not passion but an intensity so profound that it transforms him.

He realizes how much he hates himself.

He doesn't hate anyone else, not even Keller.

He hates himself because he gave up, gave in, and allowed life and circumstances to conquer him. He hadn't known he was in a battle but now as he looks back, as he sees things more clearly through the eyes of an artist (an observer) he can admit that he battled and lost. But he won't surrender, not now, not ever. It isn't in his makeup to give up.

So he paints and he throws out canvases, and he slashes canvases with long butcher knives until they are shreds lying in strips on his floor. He cracks the wooden frames, he splinters and breaks them until his hands bleed and Mozzie feeds him drink after drink of expensive wine. Until he allows the darkness that creeps to overcome him and he succumbs to it, thankfully, gratefully.

Mozzie watches him the next morning, his eyes tired but alert all the same. Mozzie is like an ever faithful dog, who would be by his side even if he kicked him and maltreated him. Mozzie stays, and Neal wonders if he only does it because he has nowhere else to go. But he chides himself for such thoughts, Mozzie, Peter, Elizabeth, even Jones and Diana are his family and his friends. They would no sooner let him fall then they would their own flesh and blood.

Mozzie is there for him in the morning, helps him clear out the ripped canvases, assists in the cleaning of his brushes and his life until Neal asks him for one favor.

"I want to go back."

"Back?"

"I want to go back to the place they found me."

"Like in back to the torture place because I have to say with all the vehemence of my hangover headache, and in big capital bold letters here, NO."

Neal wheels the chair to the trash bin and tosses more of the strips of his life laid bare on white bleak canvases. "It isn't about closure, Mozzie, there's something I want."

"A nice smell of fish? I'll bring you down to the market on-."

"No, there's something I left there," Neal says and he won't give in, because going to get the ring, pulling it out of the muck means standing up again regardless of whether or not his legs will ever support him again.

"What? Your sanity?" Mozzie huffs and crosses his arms. He looks a little like an angry ferret. It doesn't matter that Neal has no idea what an angry ferret looks like - he can imagine fairly well.

"No, something important. Please, Mozzie, can you bring me over, back to it?" Neal says and he puts on his pathetic, I'm in need face.

Mozzie sighs and throws his hands in the air. "Fine, but don't give me the 'disabled' face again. I know a good con when I see it."

"Thanks, Moz, I'll go get ready."

"What? Today?"

"Yeah, I want to get this over with," Neal says and disappears down the hallway. From behind him he hears Mozzie muttering.

"Headache!" He pauses and then continues, "Oh well, hair of the dog and all."

In the end, they borrow June's car and end up at the horrible place Neal had been held in. He still hasn't asked how long he was there. Or how long he was in the hospital. He could figure it out, he's not an idiot, but he prefers to keep it boxed and away from his mental awareness. He has an idea how long Keller tortured him, beat him, took away the last of his dreams along with the ability to walk. He still understands that this was the last place he was Neal Caffrey of old.

Mozzie maneuvers his chair over the gravelly ground and the stops and halts along the way might be a warning, but probably not. Not everything in this life is about symbolism. Sometimes it's just about how hard it is to get a wheelchair over a gravel parking lot. Once Mozzie opens the shattered door and pushes him into the dank room that Neal had been held in, Neal asks him to position the chair in a certain place in the room.

"Okay?"

"Can you leave?"

"Leave?"

"Yes, just for a few minutes."

"Okay, I get that this is about closure-."

"It isn't about closure."

"Sure it isn't." Mozzie marches to the door. "I am not leaving the building. I'm staying right outside the door and not closing it."

"Fine, just don't spy on me."

"Fine."

After Mozzie leaves and makes a point of stomping around outside the door, Neal reaches out and carefully crawls out of the chair. His one leg doesn't move at all, but his uninjured leg still has some feeling, like pins and needles most of the time, but he can swing it about like a toddler trying to coordinate his walking. He gets to the muddy floor of the dungeon room, and scans the layers of dirt.

It takes a few minutes and, in between, Mozzie calls out and asks him if he is okay.

"Go away."

"Always a pleasure, Neal, always a pleasure."

Shaking his head, he catches sight of what he is looking for, finds the indent in the floor, and picks at it with his nail. He works it until the sliver of the board opens and he digs into the mud without hesitation. It doesn't take as long as he thinks it should, and he finds it, the treasure, the real symbol of his hope, and he pulls it free. Hiding it in his pocket, Neal pats it once and then goes about the arduous task of climbing back into his chair.

When he's finished, he peers over his shoulder at the door and says, "Okay."

"Oh, has the prince beckoned me? Me, the lowly manserv- what the hell did you do roll around in the mud?"

"Let's just go."

Mozzie releases a pent up breath and says, "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"No."

"Okay then, as long as we understand each other."

"We do."

"And now, this is where I pretend and cart your ass out of here."

"Mozzie," he says in warning.

"Yes, yes, of course, manservant extraordinaire to the rescue."

Later, he sits in the bathroom with the ring in hand, slowly and meticulously cleaning it. Mozzie has since left, assured that Neal has showered, shaved, and taken care of all the immediate business. Neal washes away the grime and thinks of Sara and how very much he wanted her, and now he cannot have her.

He feels in some ways as if he's become the beast to her beauty. She would never have him, not broken and sullen. He flicks the ring back and forth, the glint of it perfect in the light. He doesn't know why but he kisses it and brings it with him to his bed, slipping it in the drawer of the night stand, then he turns to look at the empty easel.

He begins.

In strokes of raw umber first to prepare the canvas like the masters of old. He works it into the feel of the canvas and then he stops, shifts the chair away as he moves onto the stool. He brings out the burnt umber and pushes shadow and light around on the canvas. It is about the play of light on objects, capturing the elusiveness of light with its dark shadow following it. He works from memory, he does what he needs to do. He bleeds out his hopes, his joy, his fears, and his love onto the surface.

It transforms from simple white into beauty. It transcends his hopelessness.

It is her, the woman, his beloved.

With his final strokes weeks later, he has changed. She has changed him in so many ways. She has saved him, the beast.

*oOo*  
Back in New York City and her nerves are on fire with all of the energy. This place, this town, this life is who she is and when she ran away from it, she knows she ran from herself. She wanted to find some other Sara Ellis, but Sara is this strength, this populated city with its furious action and beautiful twilight glimmering off of steel towers. This is her city and this is her blood.

She comes back with a vengeance and finds her way through the business world. It isn't easy or light, but she thrives on it and loves every minute. She opens up a little office and has an assistant and she works eighty hour weeks but it feeds her this crazy life and she forgets for a while that there are other dreams. Not dreams of family, but of love and sweet whispers at night. She forgets or chooses to not remember all the other things she might want.

Walking into a small cafe one Monday morning, she settles into a seat and accepts the coffee like it is her life blood. She collapses into the cushioned seat. She just spent a whole weekend hunting down an art thief and was able to bring him down along with his ring. It had been fun and she recovered the art for her client. She slept maybe 4 hours during the whole chase, but she still felt the high of it.

She drinks the coffee like it is her manna from heaven and closes her eyes as the young barista comes up to her.

"I have a bet, can you help me win it?"

She peeks at him. He's all bones, lanky as youth tends to be. His hair tangles out of his multicolored knitted cap and his shoes are untied.

She's feeling high and pleasant today, so she goes with the flow of it. "Sure, what is it?"

"Are you the woman?"

"I'm a woman," she says and screws up her face. She might not be wearing her best or dressed to the nines, but she still looks pretty much feminine. What's this all about?

"No, no," he says and gestures behind him to the coffee bar. "The Woman."

She frowns and shakes her head.

"The painting?"

She drops the mug on the table with a loud clang and stands up. Staring, stock still and awed by the painting, the woman, the figure peering over her shoulder with her bare back to the observer, only a drape of cloth to cover her but reveals her at the same time. The ginger hair, the knowing eye, the turn of the shoulder....it is all her.

"Who, who did that? Where did you get that?"

"Oh, I don't know, that's a new one," the boys says and scrambles out of her way as she stumbles through the tables and chairs.

"A new one?"

"Yeah, yeah. Hey Margie, tell this lady about the painting?" The boy escapes.

An older woman walks over to Sara and assesses her before she smiles and says, "Yes, that's a new one. On loan from a gallery, they're having a show next week."

"A show," she says but doesn't take her eyes off of the painting. "A show?"

"New artist, Neal something, Cafferty?"

"Neal Caffrey?" she supplies.

"Yeah, yeah, that's it. All the rage in town. He's taking the place by storm with his series called The Woman. This is like number six or something."

"Neal?"

"Yeah, hey you okay?"

Grabbing her purse, she nods and says, "I will be."

Right now, right here she wants answers and she intends to get them. She intends to interrogate the little bastard within an inch of his life. He's not going to fool with Sara Ellis and get away with it.

It takes a few phone calls, strategically placed, to find out that Neal is still staying at June's. She calls a cab and crosses Manhattan within the hour. When she knocks on the door of June's mansion she has a singular purpose in mind: to tell Neal Caffrey exactly what she thinks of him and then to slam the door on him. Hard, several times. Loudly.

One of the staff welcomes her and she waves off a hello to climb the stairs. She doesn't bother knocking, she just walks right into the apartment. And there he is, in all his glory, sitting on a stool next to a large canvas with a close up of her face staring back at her. Fury that he's making a name for himself with her image radiates off her like explosions from the corona of the sun.

"Sara," he says and his words are soft, like stones skipping across a silent lake. "How are you?"

It takes her a moment to rectify her feelings with the moment, to get everything in control. Paintings litter the room and there's a sheet hanging next to Neal over something with a wheel. He must use that to cart around all the canvases with her image on them.

"Would you like some tea?" There's a pot on the table near him and a number of teacups as if June's staff placed them there for him.

"It must be nice, Neal, sitting up here in the clouds, having the wait staff take care of you, your every whim."

It feels like she’s slung an arrow at him and she sees it hits a mark, easily, too easily.

"Not tea then," he says.

"No, I'm more of a coffee girl myself." She walks around the apartment. There are canvases upon canvases of her image. "I hear you're having a show."

"Something like that," he says and she realizes he's on guard.

"Nice, nice of you to invite me," she says it sarcastically but even to her it sounds petty and mean.

"I didn't realize you were in town," he says and puts the brush to the side.

"Oh, I came back to town," she says as she ambles about the place. There are other paintings of the metal city, Peter and Elizabeth, even of Mozzie and one of June. "I was here, all those months ago. You know that silly little thing."

"Silly little thing," he repeats. "I didn't know you came."

"Oh sure I did, of course I did."

"You waited."

She tosses her purse on the table and says, "For hours, Neal, I waited for hours."

He folds his hands and says, "I'm sorry."

"What the hell happened? If you didn't want me, you should have called, anything."

"I was detained," he says with a light tone in his voice like it isn't supposed to hurt more.

"By what? Were you arrested again? Do you still have the tracker?" Her eyes fall downward to find his bare ankle is free of the electronic encumbrance. "But now, it's okay to use me, my image, and sell it."

"I needed to work things out," Neal says and it’s more of an explanation to something than an excuse. She can feel something like a thorn in her shoe, bugging her for attention.

"What things?"

He shrugs and moves to close up his paints. As he does, he hits the sheet to shift it and it drops away to reveal a wheelchair.

Wheelchair.

She stops in mid-thought as she focuses on the chair. He hasn't gotten up, hasn't moved from his seat on the stool. He didn't even move his legs when she asked about the tracking anklet.

"Neal?"

He shakes his head.

"Neal?"

"It's nothing, really." His tone is light but laced with the pain of loss. She's at his side, bending to kneel next to him.

Her hands cradle his jaw and she gazes into his eyes, his beautiful eyes. "Neal, why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" This time his words are quiet but not unforgiving. "Tell you what, Sara? I wanted you to remember what we had, not what we can't have." He places his hands on hers, then folds them away from his face, holding her long fingers, brushing them with his paint stained hands.

"What can't we have?" Sara searches his eyes. "We can't have what Neal? You're still living in the clouds, you still create. Did you think I fell in love with you because you could dance? Because you could shimmy through an air duct to steal precious works of art?"

He smiles and the old Neal, her Neal tinges the crinkle of his eyes. "Maybe."

She giggles. "Maybe a little bit. But no, seriously, did you think so little of me?"

He bows his head, not looking at her. "No, I thought so little of myself."

She lifts her hand to his jaw again, lifting it, and seeks to find the love she knew she left behind. She finds it there. "We'll do this thing, this life in the clouds, Neal. And we're all the better for it."

"Can you, can you do this?" He gestures to his legs.

"Look who you're talking to Neal, I can do anything," she says and leans in. He smells of oil and paint, and cologne. She pauses before she kisses and says, "I want this, Neal, tell me you want this."

"It's pretty plain who I want, Sara," he says and then relents. "I want you, I love you."

"I love you."

The kiss - when it comes - fills and break and shatters the boundaries she's walled up her heart. It breaks through because it burns bright and feels like touching liquid sunlight on her tongue. She grabs hold of him and they topple, descending in a crumpled pile on the floor. They don't stop kissing, they don't stop holding on. They continue until the sun drops out and the moon beckons, they continue until they know their affair isn't to be remembered, but to be lived.

THE END


End file.
